There’s a lot to see in Madhya Pradesh. The only problem: no one seems to be looking. It might be bang in the middle of the country, but it’s still one of the easiest to miss while planning a holiday.
The reasons seem to be staring everyone in the face. “It’s pretty simple as far as I can see,” says P.C. Sen, former managing director of the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (MPTDC). “Madhya Pradesh has not built itself an image. Kashmir has the hills, Goa the beaches, Rajasthan its chivalry, but when people think of Madhya Pradesh, they still see an administrative state.”
Sen says that the MP government needs to learn to sell its destinations. “Why should someone want to see the history in Mandu when they can go to the Taj in Agra? Or why would they settle for Kanha National Park instead of Corbett? We need to give the state a unique selling proposition — stress on the fact, for instance, that Kanha is the forest that Rudyard Kipling wrote about or that Mandu is the place that Mughal emperor Jehangir went to. You can no longer just go on promoting a sanctuary or a monument, you need to build an image around it,” explains Sen.
Digvijay Singh, the former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, says there’s a lot of change needed in the state if the influx of tourists is to increase. “The roads are in really bad shape and the infrastructure is missing. The air connectivity is poor. And the taxes are a real killer. The luxury tax here is higher than in Rajasthan — people realise it’s cheaper to holiday there and forget Madhya Pradesh,” he says.
Singh insists that there is a lot of tourist potential in the state that just needs to be tapped and that now is the time to do it. It’s all about getting down to the basics, he says, and improving things from the ground up. “Take this simple example: Khajuraho is 600km from New Delhi and it takes 15 hours to get there, while Udaipur is 700km from New Delhi and it takes just 10-12 hours to reach. The answer is roads,” says Singh.
Besides there are few luxury hotels in Madhya Pradesh. There are a number of heritage hotels, several of which are run by the tourism department, but none can be counted as five-star.
The Madhya Pradesh government too seems to have realised that something drastic needs to be done if the number of tourists is to increase. And it is getting a few strategies in place.
Ashwani Lohani, managing director of MPTDC, claims that though he believes there really is no mechanism by which a state can count the number of tourists it gets every year, rough estimates are that in 2006 Madhya Pradesh saw 90 lakh tourist visitors and in 2007, 140 lakh. But though the numbers have increased, the state administration understands that a lot more needs to be done.
MPTDC is now in the process of setting things right. “We have professionalised the corporation. And every property has been improved. We have managed an ISO certification for a number of them. And we have introduced new products (in fact, their railway coach restaurant Shaan-E-Bhopal won a National Award for Most Innovative Product in 2006-07) and cruises,” says Lohani.
Lohani says that the tourist infrastructure is being improved with assistance from the central government. MPTDC has also identified a number of forts and palaces which are, in collaboration with private companies, going to be turned into heritage resorts. “We have also started improving road connectivity on a war footing. We are improving the roads to Bhopal, Jabalpur and Indore. The government is rationalising taxation that infringes on tourism — the luxury tax, for instance, has been halved during the off-season and the tax on aviation turbine fuel has been brought down from 28 per cent to 20 per cent. So the government is being very encouraging.”
The Taj Group of hotels plans to expand its presence in the state, while groups like Holiday Inn, Trident and Fortune are also planning to open new hotels. Oberoi Hotels acquired an old fort outside Khajuraho a few years ago, with plans of converting it into a top-notch heritage hotel. Six MPTDC properties have recently been given a three-star classification and four of its properties an ISO certification.
But officials at MPTDC do not seem to agree with Sen’s theory that the state needs a USP to succeed. Although the marketing department says if they did have a USP, it would probably be tigers and temples. If that’s the case, ask tour operators, why has the government almost doubled the fee for safaris, which are at the moment the top attraction for tourists to the state? “In November last year, the park entrance fees and the safari fees were increased, and that has affected the numbers of tourists opting for them. For instance, a complete safari (including park fees, etc) used to cost Rs 1,000, while it now costs Rs 2,500. I can already see a decrease of 20 percent in the number of people approaching us for safaris, put off only by the increase in prices,” says Varun of Dynamic Tours, based in New Delhi.
The MPTDC clearly hopes its marketing blitzkrieg of advertising in print, television and in movie theatres will make up for those hitches. Officials in the marketing department of MPTDC say that the corporation has realised that there is huge potential in intra-state tourism. “We found that people from Madhya Pradesh never think of holidaying within the state. So we’ve hit upon this idea of marketing the state to its own people,” says a marketing manager. The tagline for their promo goes: Bahut kuch hai khas, Bhopal ke aas paas (There is a lot to see in and around Bhopal). They have done the same with Gwalior, Indore and Jabalpur. MPTDC is also opening offices in South India — in Hyderabad, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka — in an attempt to woo tourists seeking a ‘temple circuit’.
Their marketing seems to be working. According to G.S. Chahal, executive director, MPTDC, the number of tourists from within the state has gone up by 25 percent since the launch of the campaign, especially at the World Heritage Sites of Sanchi and Bhimbetka. “People from Madhya Pradesh used to take these sites for granted. It’s just like if you live in Agra, you might not make the effort to go see the Taj Mahal,” he says. “But this campaign of ours has certainly made the locals aware of the natural beauty and heritage in their own backyard.”
The campaign has also translated to concrete changes at the ground level, “value adds,” as Chahal calls them. MPTDC, for instance, had only eight rooms in its hotel in Sanchi, which has now increased to 18 owing to the tourist influx; some rooms have been air-conditioned; there is a gym and conference room facility; the roads to all the sites have been improved; and the eateries at all the sites have been upgraded.
Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh has for the first time bagged the National Tourism Award 2006-07 for its performance in the tourism sector. Says Lohani, “The focus of marketing is not on discovering new destinations in the state but on improving and marketing the existing ones. We know we are the best in the country. We just have to learn to show it off.”